Floating on Air
by Romantic Nerd
Summary: A quick, light story about what happens after. Takes place at the end of the last episode of season 2.


Floating on Air

Jumping and climbing into the balloon had been easy for William, for he was elated – he was floating on air. _She said 'yes!' They were back together! She still cared for him! She was so beautiful and he was back in her world,_ the electrifying thoughts sparkled inside his brain as his joy sailed inside of him, dizzying him. Breathless, his heart thumping and thundering in his chest, his eyes met hers, his smile humungous, and he found he was having trouble thinking. _What could he possibly say?_

"Doctor, are you familiar with the details of the first recorded flight of a hot-air balloon?" he asked, even he, himself, wondering how he could remember such a detailed fact, unsure of how he had even come to know it. His heart skipped a beat when she answered him, amazed, purely amazed, with the wonder of this woman.

"Pilâtre de Rozier from the center of Paris on November 21, 1783," she had responded.

He was sure no other woman in all the world would be able to spout off such an answer… and certainly not while actually flying a hot-air balloon at the time, and while looking so incredibly beautiful as she did it. He told himself that it was no surprise that he had fallen head-over-heels for her, and fallen so very hard. Still, it was his nature to challenge her, as it was hers to challenge him, and he immensely wanted to impress her. And so, he upped the ante. "Ah," he said with a cocky twinkle in his eye, "That was the first _manned_ flight. Joseph and Étienne Montgolfier launched one two months before that. The passengers were a duck, a sheep, and a rooster."

"How fascinating!" Julia exclaimed. She found her mind reflecting, thinking that such a man as William Murdoch would be seen by some as a know-it-all, but she couldn't help it, he thrilled her to the core.

Stunned by the look in her eyes, William stepped closer, and his glance dropped down to her lips, then mingled on a curl attempting to frame her face in the wind. He reached for it, becoming suddenly startled by a pained sensation of sinking…

Julia stepped back.

 _She was reluctant_. Despite the pull of gravity between them, her eyes had left his. And William tried with all his might not to show his disappointment.

Her voice scratchy, starting low and then recovering to stand firmly in the whooshing wind surrounding them, "I wonder why _three_ animals?" she pondered.

William's brain hurled through a myriad of thoughts, some of them trying to answer her question, more of them dealing with the trumpeting and throbbing of his heart.

Offering a suggestion to her own question, Julia said, "I mean, perhaps the sheep was chosen because its physiology is somewhat similar to that of a human." Her eyes touched his again…

 _Such a spark in him._

She added, "Maybe the duck because it could fly. But why the rooster?"

There was an intense, raw, honesty between them that seemed to burn down to his soul. Her withdrawal, her ambivalence, threatened to break his heart, for he was certain that it was because he had broken hers. William stepped closer to her again, this time, her not pulling back. It was as if their boundaries overlapped, their auras somehow melding, and with that promising near-touch there would only be truth. "Julia…"

And his voice, his tone, rocked her deeply, and instinctively she held to him, so open.

William's eyes had never looked more gorgeous, filled with a sense of urging, pleading, and a yet also with a lingering, profound, confidence. He swallowed, to strengthen his voice, then told, "I know I hurt you," hurrying to add, "I didn't intend to, but I did."

 _He saw it…_

 _She felt it and she would not hide it_ …

Julia's big blue eyes teared, and the words just seemed to fly away from him, leaving him speechless and dazed. But inside of him, a flood of warm lifeblood and love poured through, deluging his chest, flowing out of him, covering her, shrouding her, and wrapping her with its boundless touch. He needed to heal the pain he saw in her.

She dropped her eyes, for just a moment, before they resettled into his.

 _Oh, how his heart soared with the sound of the emotional squeakiness in her voice._

"All I want is you, William…" she started to tell, twirling the world, "I want you, and I want you to want me," she whispered it, like a secret.

Those thick, long lashes of his held back his tears too. "But I do, more than anything," he told. His breath tingled in her ear, warm and damp, and he bared, "I couldn't get you out of my mind, no matter how I tried." His head tilted, his breath rumbled, and then his teeth tenderly nipped at the cartridge on the back of her ear cascading lightning bolts of want into her womb. It plummeted deeper and deeper, trickling, flooding, down, as he went on, "I couldn't get you out of my dreams, Julia… every night…" his sigh full of lust and longing, "each and every morning, it was you. Enid had been lovely, and I adored Alwyn, but you are the woman of my dreams Julia, every breath, every heartbeat, is you."

Julia weakened in his arms and William spun, so many paths. He considered needing a prophylactic… _didn't have one_. Then the words were just there, looming lusciously, seductively in his mouth – _he would propose_! It was perfect, so romantic along the shore of Lake Ontario, floating effortlessly along in a magnificent hot-air balloon.

 _He had no ring!_ the warning blared, halting his impulse, "… _and Julia Ogden is a modern woman. Such a woman as her wouldn't want to be tied to a man, utterly aversive, the thought of a wife being a man's property_ …"

The momentary stutter caught her and Julia realized with a jolt that she was meant to be flying the balloon! " _We're going into the lake!_ " her brain screamed at her from deep inside some inner tunnel. _To finally reunite with William only to fall from the sky and drown in Lake Ontario. No this could not be._

"William," her voice alerted, "The balloon! We're headed directly for the lake!"

Panic abound, all eyes darted to the horizon before them. They were too low. And the lake, the gigantic, ocean-like lake, was clearly where they were being blown.

Julia heard Reggie's skilled voice in her head, so calm, so wise, as he taught, " _Flying a balloon means predicting the wind, Julia. There is a sea-breeze that travels from the colder to the hotter surface. The land is hot during the day. Have faith, the wind will take you to where you should land_." Adept, she increased the flame under the balloon, lifting them, giving them more time.

Then, spotting the leaves rustling in the trees just below, Julia felt the surge of reassurance. Up ahead the wind blew _away_ from the shore. There was a subtle sigh from her, William hearing it, the sound managing to relieve him too. "Look William. Look at the leaves. The wind will soon catch us, take us away from the lake." Their eyes met and he nodded, prompting her to smile.

Later, after safely landing, they trekked together through the wooded Lake Ontario shoreline, seeking a house with phone to use to call the balloon master and Julia's instructor, Reginald Poundsett. He would come to get them and retrieve the balloon. Julia knew her way around this area, it was obvious, as she guided their search. She found a home just off in the distance and the couple went towards it as the Sun sunk lower in the sky.

Julia lifted her eyes and shielded them with her hand from the bright light, drawing William to look into the blinding Sun to the west as well. She giggled and his heart thumped, loving the sound. She explained, "It never ceases to amaze me that your hat can stay on through… well," she hunted for the words, "well, through anything."

"Yes," he replied, "my trusty hat."

Julia considered telling him how much she adored his hat, but her original reason for looking down the lakeshore tipped her tongue first. "If we kept going along the shore here," her eyes gestured in the westward direction once again, "we would get to my family's lake house."

"Oh," William acknowledged.

In his head, he heard his arguments against proposing marriage to her building. " _Yes, of course. The Ogden's… members of the Rowing Club, and every other club I've ever heard of. They would have a lake house… Out of your league, William,"_ he thought to himself with a flutter of dread, and fear, and worry, and regret, and just a little bit of relief, for he had not asked her _._

Changing the subject, Julia wondered, "Do you think the others will be able to tell we have gotten back together?"

William noticed a strange lightness in his heart as he contemplated it, a feeling of outright cockiness and glee burning in him. Yet, so odd, for it would certainly mix with feelings of embarrassment as well, at least, he expected it would. There was such a tendency to tease at Stationhouse #4. _Abruptly the memory flashed, of him being hooked up to the truthilizer machine, Higgins asking if he was in love, the blue, squiggly liquid surging upward in the tube, Julia's knowing eyes meeting his…_

Finding he needed to clear his throat, to push away the memory, before he responded, William replied, "The Inspector and George said I was… pining."

Her smile could light up the world – did actually.

"They'll be on the lookout for it then," she concluded, both of them figuring that their rekindled relationship would draw much attention.

At the time, they could not have known that in only a few months William would return from Bristol, and Julia would publicly fly into his arms, and they would be swept up into a kiss, and everyone, truly everyone, would applaud them. From that moment on it would be out in the open. Detective William Murdoch and Dr. Julia Ogden were a couple, a rare and wonderful and astounding couple, and they were loved by many.

But, for now William had been willing to see which way the wind would take them, even after Julia had agreed with him that it could be anywhere. In the end, he was, and would always remain, truly so very grateful that it had taken him to her, for together is exactly where these two were meant to be.


End file.
